August 21, 2000


Features

What's in Your Green Tea?
BY FRANCES CERRA WHITTELSEY
An In These Times special investigation.

Why I'm Voting for Nader ...
BY ROBERT McCHESNEY

... And Why I'm Not
BY JAMES WEINSTEIN

Fox Shocks the World
BY RICK ROCKWELL
Now comes the hard part for Mexico's new president.

Tijuana Troubles
BY DAVID BACON
NAFTA is failing workers.

Unions Get Religion
BY DAVID MOBERG


News

Safety Last
BY DAVE LINDORFF
As oil prices soar, so do the number of deadly accidents.

Sale of the Century
BY GEOFF SCHUMACHER
An unusual government auction helps preserve the Nevada wilderness.

Water Wars
BY CHARMAINE SEITZ

A botched deal leaves Palestinians high and dry.

Profile
BY BEN WINTERS

Lowell Thompson, a.k.a Raceman.


Views

Editorial
BY JOEL BLEIFUSS
Toxic shock.

Viewpoint
BY KIP SULLIVAN
HMO's invasion of privacy.

Appall-O-Meter
BY DAVID FUTRELLE

A Terry Laban Cartoon


Culture

Give It Away
BY DAVID GRAEBER
The Maussians are coming.

Good Fela
BY HILLARY FREY
The music, politics and legend of Nigeria's Fela Kuti.

Time's Arrow
BY CARL BROMLEY
A Chilean dissident finds the cinema in Proust.

Mission: Impossible 3
BY BILL BOISVERT
Goodbye, Mr. Secret Agent ...

 

Sale of the Century

By Geoff Schumacher

Las Vegas

Urban sprawl may be the bane of 21st-century American life, but federal land managers in Nevada have found an innovative way to make it work for the environment. The Bureau of Land Management owns tens of thousands of acres of undeveloped land in the fast-growing Las Vegas area. Rather than trying to manage the hodgepodge of large and small parcels, most of them surrounded by development, the BLM has targeted them for sale.

In the past, the federal agency engineered massive, complicated land swaps in which a developer seeking a prime BLM tract would buy up environmentally sensitive areas elsewhere and exchange them for the land. But the process came under heavy fire in the mid-'90s, when an investigation showed that the government was losing millions of dollars in lopsided swaps favoring developers. Nevada's congressional delegation came up with a solution: auction the BLM's urban holdings in Las Vegas to the highest bidders and use the proceeds to buy valuable habitat and riparian areas held privately. The auction proceeds stay in Nevada rather than being deposited in the federal treasury.

 

 


In These Times © 2000
Vol. 24, No. 19